Fade
by butterflie
Summary: Sin is Jecht and Jecht is Sin and he can never ever make it back to Zanarkand


He sees the world fade.

A whirl of colours, and the roar of the wind, and the water comes rushing over him. His old man is standing in the middle, all rough edges and sharp lines and cocky, self-confident (_arrogant_) smiles, and he can see right through him to the other side of the stadium. A huge chunk is missing, but the seats are floating in mid-air, still in their proper places, and every one of them has a skeleton sitting in it.

(_skeletons are supposed to look only like skeletons nothing else but somehow they all look like his old man_)

Breaking bones and rotting flesh, empty eye-sockets, and every one of them has a cocky, self-confident (_arrogant_) smile. They are looking into nothing, they are watching the swell of the wave come cresting over their section, and as one their heads turn, swiveling to stare (_but they can't stare they don't have eyes they're just empty holes_) right at him.

His old man grins.

"I am Sin," he says, and the flesh of his face begins to melt, millions of liquified droplets breaking away and dripping onto the floor (_drip drip drip just like the pattering of a soft rain on a sunny spring day_). The skeletons begin to silently laugh, the only sound the creaking of their unhinging jaws, and it is not long before his old man is one of them, nothing more than a frame of connected bones, his melted flesh in a tan puddle beneath him.

The water is still coming in huge waves, splashing continuously all around them, but it merely (no one is wet) runs right through them, as if they are not even there.

(_the force of the water doesn't break them apart_)

Everything changes then, morphs, a blur of colours mingling and fading to grey, the boom of thunder (_or is that cannon-fire_) far off in the distance, and suddenly there is blood-red liquid everywhere. It is falling, dripping all around him (_a shower in blood that's a first_), bright red droplets landing on him, sliding down his skin, turning a dark maroon even before they hit the ground.

Pyreflies swarm over him, swirling every which way in brilliant flashes of light, even though no one's dead and there are no fiends (_but everyone's dead they're all lying there so still and lifeless_). There's so many of them and they're pressing in closer and closer on him until he almost can't breathe, until he thinks that if he even dares open his mouth they will fly in and smother him from the inside.

But no sooner than he opens his mouth to finally scream, they all disappear.

The ocean stands before him, and he blinks in surprise and wonders if the ocean has always been there. He is standing on a beach, and he looks around and a jolt of shock ripples through him, racing down his spine and spreading out through all the nerves in his body, and he realizes that he knows this beach.

Hundreds of bodies litter the beach (_but they were alive only five minutes ago so focused and determined and proud_), sprawled out in various positions face down in the sand, many others slumped over in death, propped up against the rocks that killed them only moments before.

It is the beach of Operation Mi'ihen, it is the beach just on the outskirts of Mushroom Rock Road, it is the beach where many soldiers charged willingly to their death, killed by Sin (_killed by his old man_), killed before they ever had a chance to live.

It is the beach where he could no longer deny the truth to himself, as much as he tried to deny it to others.

(_Sin is Jecht and Jecht is Sin and he can never ever make it back to Zanarkand_)

He turns back towards the other and Sin (_Jecht_) is sitting out there in the water calmly, as if he hasn't just killed a hundred people, as if he hasn't ravaged the lands of Spira for a thousand years, over and over, no mercy (_because after all Spira is a spiral of death and no one can ever escape_).

He lets out an angry roar and charges towards Sin (_Jecht_), his body wound tight, all pent-up anger and frustration and despair and confusion and hatred, and he reaches the water but somehow he is still running, he just skirts right through it as if it isn't really there. He runs as fast as he can to Sin (_Jecht_), but it is a strange sort of phenomenon because no matter how far he runs he can never seem to reach Sin (_Jecht_), he can never manage to get any closer to the one person he hates more than anything.

Sin (_Jecht_) is always maddeningly just out of reach.

At last he stops, just stands there in the water that isn't really water, and stares at Sin (_Jecht Jecht Jecht Sin is Jecht and he too is part of Spira's spiral_) with eyes full of hatred and anger and fear, and opens his mouth to let out a scream.

In the darkened room of one of Rin's travel agencies, Tidus wakes up screaming.

_fin_.

Seriously? Don't ask, because I don't really know. Written for 50episodes on livejournal, in which you write one scene based on a theme.


End file.
